The Agency for Cultural Affairs will begin full-scale operations in Kyoto, where it will be relocated, on the 15th.
In a two-week verification conducted by the Agency for Cultural Affairs last year to investigate the issues of relocation, it was found that not a single remote response had been made, such as by explaining to members of the Diet.
This verification was conducted over a two-week period by the Agency for Cultural Affairs during the ordinary session of the Diet in February last year, with all employees of departments relocating to Kyoto working at a rental office in Shinagawa, Tokyo.
NHK obtained records of the verification through a Freedom of Information request and interviewed related parties, and found that there were a total of 2 explanations to Diet members and participation in political party meetings during the period, but there was not a single case where we were able to respond remotely, and all of them were face-to-face.
In the record, the staff responded that "there is no deepening understanding of online correspondence when dealing with legislators" and "it is difficult for only the Agency for Cultural Affairs to respond online while other ministries and agencies attend face-to-face."
Prior to this, in 2 and 17, only eight of the 1 cases in which staff were assigned to work in Kyoto were conducted remotely.
Based on these verifications, the Agency for Cultural Affairs estimates that there are 2019,2020 business trips to Tokyo a year without being able to respond remotely, and has included about 212 million yen in this fiscal year's budget.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs, headed by the Commissioner, says that most of the staff from the six departments will move to the government building in Kyoto and begin full-scale operations on the 8th, and that "we will face situations where staff members are actually asked to respond remotely every day, and we will continue to seek the understanding of the entire government and the Diet."
Staff respond face-to-face Specific cases are:
In this Freedom of Information request, a verification conducted by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2019 revealed a specific case in which a staff member who worked in Kyoto on a trial basis was required to respond face-to-face.
According to the report, the most common face-to-face response was an explanation to a member of the Diet, and the reason for this was that "there were many parliamentary offices that wanted face-to-face explanations."
In a case where a member of the Diet requested an explanation called "rec" about the "restoration of the castle tower," he was asked to come to the explanation after 1 hour and 15 minutes, and he said, "Since the section chief was on a business trip to Kyoto, I suggested that we use the video conference system for a lecture, but we did not receive a reply, so a staff member at the government building in Tokyo gave a lecture." and so on.
In addition, in the case where a member of the Diet traveled to Tokyo to make a petition to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology regarding the Man'yōshū, the section chief and assistant chief traveled back and forth between Kyoto and Tokyo to respond to the 20-minute petition.
In addition, there was a response to the Diet, and it was written that "It turned out that questions were asked at the Education, Education, and Science Committee, and the section chief went to Tokyo to deal with them."